


The Twelve Names of God

by Verde_Manzanita



Category: Rammstein
Genre: Coffee Shops, F/M, Love, Nasty Divorce, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 22:34:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14506929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verde_Manzanita/pseuds/Verde_Manzanita
Summary: Claudia had a bad day and didn't want to take shit from nobody.Richard Kruspe had other plans.





	The Twelve Names of God

**Author's Note:**

> I just had to take this off my head.  
> I'm sick. My throat hurts and I have a fever (I'm currently walking around with a cold wet towell on my forehead). I want cuddles. They'd be better if they came from the Rammstein guys but since I'm not yet hallucinating I could use yours too.
> 
> Pity me, I'm being such a baby over this cold.

**1 - Mr. Beanie**

Claudia Baumann thanked Johann, the most cheerful barista in the whole universe, and turned carrying her cup of coffee and a small plate with a generous portion of lemon-meringue pie in her hands, willing to take up her favourite spot on the mint-green sofa of the Kafe Kolbe. She’d had a hard day at work and felt like relaxing with a hot beverage, a sweet snack and a good book before going back home. January’s snow covered the streets of Berlin and the store was crammed with clients looking for some heat and shelter. And that's when she saw him.

He was wearing a black coat and big boots, and a grey beanie that squashed his hair against his temples. He seemed tall and fine-looking. And he was having a seat at her spot. _Her spot_. Claudia practically lived in that sofa when she wasn’t at work, running some errands or travelling, her name should already have been embroidered in the left corner’s upholstery. Come on, her tips were paying the barista’s college fees! And out of nowhere a total stranger appeared and seated his inconsiderate ass on her place as if it were nothing.

The cup’s heat was beginning to burn her fingers through the leather of her glove, but she couldn’t help standing astonished beside the bar observing how Mr. Beanie left his coat aside, opened the book she had left on the sofa to mark her spot and had a look at it. _Her book_. Should she bring him her coffee and pie too, to make a clean sweep? The book had her name written in big letters on the first page, but Mr. Beanie didn’t seem to mind for he took a sip of his coffee and absent-mindedly flipped through its pages.

Claudia decided that guy would start her newly-bought novel before her only over her dead body, let alone after having a hellish day in which her useless boss had lectured her for hours. Careful not to spill her coffee, she headed to the sofa and placed her order on the dark-wooden table, took off her gloves, coat and red, woollen beret she always wore during winter and stood still with her hands in her pockets beside the stranger until he realized he was being observed and lifted his head from the book.

Claudia internally promised to beat the shit out of herself later when Mr. Beanie’s gaze pierced hers and she could only think about how absurdly beautiful and expressive his eyes, of a blue-greenish shade and framed by a thin line of black eyeliner, were. His features were soft, and he looked like a good person. Naughty, but good. That was all she needed… Attractive imbeciles ought to be illegal. A new treasonous thought crossed her brain when Mr. Beanie dedicated her an adorable smile. Perfect, she’d have to give herself two beatings instead of one.

“Do you want an autograph?”, he asked. Claudia raised her brows, completely startled.

“Pardon me?”

“An autograph, lend me a notebook or something and I’d love to sign it for you”.

“What I want is my book”, she blurted out sharply pointing at the novel in his hands with a movement of her head. An autograph? Jokes on top of that? Oh, she would autograph his face with her nails if he didn’t return what was hers in five seconds. Mr. Beanie opened his eyes a little bit more and had the decency of looking embarrassed.

“Is it yours? I thought it belonged to the shop and hence I took it, I’m sorry”, he excused himself and quickly handed her the book. She took it and granted him a lenient smile she hadn’t planned to give at all. Three beatings. Three beatings and she knew there would be more.

“It’s nothing”, she replied. The very polite voice in her head always had its way.

Claudia didn’t bother claiming revenge on her stolen spot and her kidnapped book, for she was very conscious those sensations were only her bad day yelling in her ear. Instead, she took a seat on the opposite side of the sofa, took a sip of her coffee –black, smoking hot, three cubes of brown sugar– and began her reading. Some minutes later the prologue had given way to an interesting first chapter and to Mr. Beanie’s voice interrupting the murder it described. She breathed in.

“Is your name Claudia?”, he asked while removing his cappuccino, “it was written on the first page”. So he had noticed. She slowly turned her face to him, a testing look on her eyes. It was written all over the first page but he’d thought it belonged to the coffee shop? Was he dumb, inattentive or a seriously bad seducer?

“Yes, my name is Claudia”. A gust of cold air hit the room as a group of youngsters left the café and ventured into Berlin’s winter.

“Well, I’m Richard”, he said and offered his hand. Claudia felt the urge of biting it off, but she only shook it with hers. He grinned at her again, bigger this time, and pierced her with that light glance in other circumstances, at another point in her life, could’ve melted her. After a nasty divorce and a couple of tedious experiences with the opposite sex, the only one that melted Claudia was Milo, her German Shepherd, when he laid on his back asking for some cuddling.

She went back to her reading and him to his coffee. During the next half hour Claudia tried her best to concentrate on the story, but couldn’t help snapping a couple of furtive glances at her left side while she set the book aside to try a bite of the pie or pretended to search something in the depths of her bag. She even caught him doing the same a couple of times, and considered very seriously the possibility of holding his gaze in hopes he felt uncomfortable enough to be shooed away, but she would’ve swallowed a fork before admitting she might want to feel his blue gaze all over her, just a bit more.

Five minutes later Claudia decided it was time to forget all those nonsenses and go to the terrace to smoke a well-deserved cigarette. She took the packet from her bag and when she opened it and found it empty, she gave herself a moment to reflect on the hideous monster she must had been in other life to be punished like that in this one. She sighed feeling defeated and left the empty packet on the table. And then, Mr. Beanie’s soft hand showed up in her line of sight holding a cigarette. She looked at him, directly this time.

“Here”, he offered. A thousand times damned were the guy, his magnetic gaze and his kind smile. Who had casted the evil eye on her that morning? Why did the universe hate her? Claudia accepted the cigarette and nodded thankfully, and she didn’t even bother hiding she had brushed his fingers on purpose while doing it to enjoy the creamy touch of his skin for a second. Seemingly, he didn’t bother pretending he didn’t like it either, for he grazed her thumb taking advantage on the closeness of their hands. “I’ll go with you, I’m also in the mood for a smoke”.

Berlin’s fierce coldness hit Claudia’s face when she opened the Kolbe’s door and she thanked some gods she did not believe in for having a day off next day, in case her vices had agreed to end her through a nice pneumonia. Mr. Beanie lit her cigarette and they stood smoking in silence for a while, spirals of smoke drawing weird shapes against the icy air. Some puffs later she felt satisfied enough and squashed the cigarette against the pavement. She let herself raise her eyes towards the man standing next to her and savour the sensation of his own eyes upon her for a brief moment. He could have undressed her just by looking at her.

“Thanks for the cigarette, _Richard_ ”, she muttered, and quickly headed back inside to put on her beret and gloves, take her bag and go home as fast as her legs let her.

She left a 10 euro note under her cup and rushed to the exit. Of course, she had to leave at the same time he decided to enter because otherwise she wouldn’t have had a real shitty day. Claudia didn’t know if she liked Mr. Beanie or not yet, and she was truly afraid of staying and finding out, so she said her goodbyes with a nod and started walking back to her apartment, not without reminding herself several times not to judge men that swiftly just because her ex-husband was a major jerk. At some point she would have to give herself the chance of being kind to one.

Several hours would pass until Claudia, who was already comfortably laid on her sofa beside Milo while they watched a movie on TV, realized she had left her book at the Kolbe. She wasn’t aware Mr. Beanie had indeed noticed it and had taken it with himself ready to give it back to her next afternoon if, luckily, she returned to the café. She didn’t know neither she had shared a smoke with a famous man, nor he’d do what he could to see her again throughout the whole cold January. As usual, Claudia would need time to assume life wasn’t supposed to end on a lawyer’s office.


End file.
